Located on 500 acres of beautifully landscaped terrain in central Florida, the Grande Lakes Orlando resort opened in July 2003. The resort includes a 14-story Ritz-Carlton Hotel, a 26-story JW Marriott hotel, more than 100,000 squarefeet of conference facilities, a Greg Norman-designed golf course, and a fabulous spa.

Topping it all off is close to 9,000 lineal feet of PermaSnap Coping by OMG EdgeSystems. The coping was post painted with two custom colors to match customer specified chips. Pritts and Associates, the roofing contractor, chose PermaSnap Coping for its ability to meet stringent Florida code for wind uplift requirements, and its overall quality.

“This was a big project that required strong warranties and FM ratings for roof edging,” explained Bob DeVarona, vice president of, Pritts and Associates. “Although the project was originally specced for shop fabricated coping, we wanted to offer the owner more in wind uplift ratings, plus a strong blow off and leak warranty. OMG EdgeSystems products offered these.”

David DeMeza of the Cadamar Group, the independent sales representative for this project, explained the project specifications required that the metal cap and all metal terminations meet ASCE 7-98, all based on the new Florida Building Code.

The uplift pressures for the roof varied from 50.99 lbs/sf to 196.28 lbs/sf as defined by ASCE 7-98.

PermaSnap Coping has an FM rating of 1-180 or 270 lbs/sf uplift load, which exceeded the uplift criteria for the project. This made choosing PermaSnap Coping quite simple,” he said.

Working closely with Pritts and Associates, Cadamar made sure the job progressed smoothly. This included helping create templates for more than 50 custom pier and pilaster caps and spending time on site as they were installed.

“The architect created an added feature for these buildings, which are columns that jutted out from the structure, so we had to create pilaster caps to follow the contour of the building. These caps had to match the other components and also keep the building watertight. They were critical joints, and we made them work,” added DeVarona. “It took a lot of measuring and care. Dave DeMeza, really helped us out a lot.”

Cadamar helped verify dimensions and made other templates, and visited the site frequently to answer questions and check on order status.

The project, which took more than six months to complete, required seven staggered shipments. Parts were shipped as walls were completed.

"Dave DeMeza is one of the best reps in the southeast, and I know he’ll only represent a supplier that will get materials to me when I need them with no excuses

OMG EdgeSystems is good, they responded, shifted gears quickly, and really moved with the flow,” commented DeVarona. Pritts and Associates continues to choose OMG products for other projects in Florida, and DeVarona comments that PermaSnap Coping saves him time doing installation.

OMG EdgeSystems of Asheville, NC— in business for more than 50 years—is a leading national provider of specialty construction products, including PermaSnap Coping, TerminEdge® Facia, and other fine roof perimeter metal flashing products.